What is Your Vision?

We all have things that drive us. We all have goals and pursuits, morals and guidelines in our lives. The problem is that we rarely focus on them. We abstractly think about values such as "hard work" or "honor," but how often to we think practically about how we can apply them to our lives? How often do we ponder about what our personal and professional goals are, and then try to figure out how best to accomplish them?

It's similar to driving on vacation. Let's say I am going out of town and I hop in the car and head toward the beach. Where am I going? Based off of what I just said, I don't truly know. I just vaguely am headed to "the beach." Similarly, we often want "success" or "better relationships," but do not actually know where we are going with it.

What we need is a plan. If I were going to the beach, I wouldn't just go (although that may be fun once in a while!). Instead, I would plan to go to a certain beach and then plug it into my phone so I would know how to get there. For instance, if I were headed to Ormond Beach, Florida, I would start on I-75, then go to I-275, and so on until I ended up on Highway 1, headed south along the Atlantic coast. I have a desired location (Ormond Beach, FL) with direct steps to help me achieve that (directions, knowledge of gas stations and food along the way, etc.).

Our personal lives should have this kind of structure, as well. How will we ever improve and grow as a person and as a follower of Christ without some sort of plan. We may have a vague idea of where to go, but it is much harder to pull that off without a plan. This plan is what is known as a vision.

A vision is a plan, but more than just a stale plan. There are several other things that must coincide with our vision to make it more than a plan and help us live our lives based upon it:

• Passion: what excites you? If your vision doesn't excite you, you will never follow through. If I made a vision for myself based upon living a life that focused on math, it would be a pointless vision. I would never actually want to live a life that was focused on math. I hate it. I am not passionate about mathematics in any way, shape or form. Thus, our vision must reflect what we are passionate about.
• Motivation: what drives you? Often our passion ends up motivating us, but they are not the same in all cases. Where passion is what excites us about a vision, motivation is what makes us push harder into a vision. It may be providing for your family, growing as a person or honoring God, for example. Motivation is the thing that makes us get up and get to work when nothing else does.
• Direction: where are you headed? If you don't know where you are headed, you'll likely never get there. In order to develop a true vision, you must have some sort of heading to aim for. 

 What is your passion? What is your motivation? What is your direction? Before we can really dive into your specific vision, let's figure out these three things first. What excites and drives you, and where do these things make you want to head for? Where do you want to be in a week, a month, a year or more from now? What do you want to improve on and what is it that you want to accomplish?

Once you get these three things finished, you'll be better able to start figuring out your vision. The next step is to determine your overarching mission or purpose. That, my friends, is what we will explore next week.

*This post is heavily influenced by the teaching of Jason Cummins. Look him up. Dude is awesome.